Comments received privately from several people and some made here in the Open Forum indicate that incorrect assumptions have been made by some and a couple people in particular are spreading false rumors and innuendos about our truck payment and financial circumstances. When the false information first started making its way back to me I simply let it go, figuring it would correct itself in time. It has not, so I am correcting it here.
Since we purchased our new truck, two truck payments have come due. We have made four. We would have made more but are instead restoring the reserve funds used for the down payment. Once those funds are restored, we will accelerate our truck payments to pay off our truck loan as soon as possible. We continue to meet all monthly expenses and put money away for retirement as we pay for our truck.
While it is true that we sold our house, cars, and most household goods about a year after we entered expediting, it is not true that we sold our house to buy a truck. While being free of a house payment and home ownership expenses makes it easier to handle a truck payment, we did not sell our house and goods for that reason. We did that to simplify our lives. Finding life on the road to be right for us, maintaining property at home became more trouble than it was worth, so we got rid of it.
The slogan in my signature, "The truck is our home, the nation our back yard," is a figure of speech. We still maintain a residence; modest rental space in rural Minnesota.
Our truck purchase was not a spontaneous decision. We drove fleet owner trucks for almost three years before owning a truck of our own. In that time we made good money and managed it well. Our new truck was a planned purchase that is well within our expediting-income means. If bad times come and our expediting earnings dropped to zero, the reserves built up from our expediting earnings will be sufficient to make truck payments for many months without the need to tap into other resources.
While we find great joy in expediting and take full advantage of the tourism opportunities this work provides, we are not doing this as a hobby. While our numbers are down to about 70% in service and 70% acceptance now, our norm over a 12 month period is 90% in service and 80% acceptance. The decline is due to time off taken to put finishing touches on our new truck. In time we'll be back to our customary 90/80 levels and the income such numbers produce.
We are not in financial distress. As one-truck owner-operators, expediting continues to be for us the easiest, least stressful, most lucrative and most fun work we have ever done; even more so now that we are in a truck spec'ed to meet our needs.
It does not work out that way for everyone who tries expediting. But few people enter expediting with the planning and commitment we did. Expediting has been good to us because we figured out the game, respected its demands and have been good to it.
Since we purchased our new truck, two truck payments have come due. We have made four. We would have made more but are instead restoring the reserve funds used for the down payment. Once those funds are restored, we will accelerate our truck payments to pay off our truck loan as soon as possible. We continue to meet all monthly expenses and put money away for retirement as we pay for our truck.
While it is true that we sold our house, cars, and most household goods about a year after we entered expediting, it is not true that we sold our house to buy a truck. While being free of a house payment and home ownership expenses makes it easier to handle a truck payment, we did not sell our house and goods for that reason. We did that to simplify our lives. Finding life on the road to be right for us, maintaining property at home became more trouble than it was worth, so we got rid of it.
The slogan in my signature, "The truck is our home, the nation our back yard," is a figure of speech. We still maintain a residence; modest rental space in rural Minnesota.
Our truck purchase was not a spontaneous decision. We drove fleet owner trucks for almost three years before owning a truck of our own. In that time we made good money and managed it well. Our new truck was a planned purchase that is well within our expediting-income means. If bad times come and our expediting earnings dropped to zero, the reserves built up from our expediting earnings will be sufficient to make truck payments for many months without the need to tap into other resources.
While we find great joy in expediting and take full advantage of the tourism opportunities this work provides, we are not doing this as a hobby. While our numbers are down to about 70% in service and 70% acceptance now, our norm over a 12 month period is 90% in service and 80% acceptance. The decline is due to time off taken to put finishing touches on our new truck. In time we'll be back to our customary 90/80 levels and the income such numbers produce.
We are not in financial distress. As one-truck owner-operators, expediting continues to be for us the easiest, least stressful, most lucrative and most fun work we have ever done; even more so now that we are in a truck spec'ed to meet our needs.
It does not work out that way for everyone who tries expediting. But few people enter expediting with the planning and commitment we did. Expediting has been good to us because we figured out the game, respected its demands and have been good to it.
